In November 2010, the spin bearing on QuikSCAT failed, and the antenna stopped spinning. This ended QuikSCAT's primary mission of measuring wind. (Note: the antenna spun very briefly in 2012 and 2014.) However, the QuikSCAT SeaWinds radar continued to function. With the antenna frozen at a fixed azimuth angle, the coverage swath is very narrow, which precludes wind retrieval. The sigma-0 measurements are still valid and can provide insight into the wind GMF as well as land and ice processes. Thus began the QuikSCAT Post Wind Mission (QPWM) data collection period which emphasizes collection of global sigma-0 measurements at different incidence angles. The spacecraft was tilted to enable collection of extended data sets at fixed incidence and azimuth angles. Due to orbit drift, the coverage area slowly shifts, enabling near global coverage albeit with long integration periods.

We have processed some of this data into polar images and computed the FY/MY coverage. These images are animated in the following .gif movies. Note: no adjustments for incidence angle have been made and the resolution of all images has been reduced for display. An image is produced each day using 10 days of data, thus sequential images use the same day which gives rise to the "rotating lines" effect. Changes in wind and melt over the integration period cause the differences in the brightness in the outer regions. Other variations are due to the attitude settling down when the spacecraft attitude is changed. Changes in the no-coverage "hole" in the center are due to changes in the spacecraft attitude. Data in 2014 is after the short rotation period in Feb.

Antarctic & Arctic Regions (partial)
 

Antarctic  (QPWM queh data)	Arctic  (QPWM queh data)	Antarctic  (QPWM quev data)	Arctic  (QPWM quev data)	Arctic FY/MY (QPWM data)
2010 (1.6MB)	2010 (3.8MB)	2010 (4.2MB)	2010 (5.7MB)
		2014 (16.8MB)	2014 (22.6MB)	2014* (2.7MB)

* MY=white, FY=light gray, Ocean/nodata=Black, land=dark gray